U08 | James McDougall & Hiroki Sasajima | Injya
1. Akigawa dou (spur and valley) : excerpt
4. Ku (above Tennison’s hill) : excerpt
format : CD ltd to 200 hand numbered copies
release year : 2011
length :54’32
status : still available
>>> order via Paypal : chalkdc@unfathomless.net
(Belgium) : 14 € (inc.postage)
(Europe) : 15 € (inc.postage)
(World) : 16 € (inc.postage)
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: info :
“Sometimes, the impossible is a basket of new unlikely seeds – realizing the geographical difficulty of working in unison on the same site, we opted for using at least common geologic context, not knowing where this could lead us…
What could come indeed out of distance, sensory communion, a mutual love for depicting the relief of things, its tactility ?…perhaps as with the best abstraction, a fertilizing stream, something perhaps larger than what the initial elements could have implied…something surprising even to us…
“Injya” is the encounter of our combined wanderings, and most probably the emergence of an imaginary entity powerful enough to engage us in a strange way…”(James McDougall/layout by Daniel Crokaert)
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: reviews :
When Injya is yet another fine release on the specialist label Unfathomless. The label, run by Belgian owner Daniel Crokaert, focuses primarily on ‘phonographies reflecting the spirit of a specific place’
The two artists, James McDougall & Hiroki Sasajima , have apparently chosen to work across space and time, each carrying out recordings in their respective countries, Japan and Australia, then coming to some agreement on how best to work the material into an album. This type of conceptual project has seen many fine realizations in the past, in a variety of settings: urban, rural and wilderness. By way of explanation we are told:-
“Sometimes, the impossible is a basket of new unlikely seeds – realizing the geographical difficulty of working in unison on the same site, we opted for using at least common geologic context, not knowing where this could lead us…
What could come indeed out of distance, sensory communion, a mutual love for depicting the relief of things, its tactility ?…perhaps as with the best abstraction, a fertilizing stream, something perhaps larger than what the initial elements could have implied…something surprising even to us…
Injya is the encounter of our combined wanderings, and most probably the emergence of an imaginary entity powerful enough to engage us in a strange way…”
The album is characterized by a linear approach to organizing sounds; the sounds themselves are recognizable as field recordings processed to varying degrees. By linear I mean that the individual strands of the polyphony act less as agents of morphological attraction vis-à-vis each other and more as self-sufficient lines, with their own musical interest. Machaut as opposed to Victoria if you like your early choral music. In this the work is similar in many ways to other work from the Unfathomless catalogue, which is no bad thing if you like the in-house aesthetic of the label.
The first piece, Akigawa dou (spur and valley), is a feast for lovers of onomatopoeia. In fact the use of onomatopoeia in the working language of sound artists and musicians is well embedded as an individual and social practice, despite the many contrived efforts to classify sounds scientifically.
We have burble, hiss, glug, thrum, some percussive clanks (wooden), all with ‘legitimate’ or natural sounding dynamics, affording a pleasing ebb and flow to the emerging sound field. Apart from this ebb and flow, in which one or other of the layers comes to the fore, there is little sense of development, except for the (possible) later appearance of filtered versions of previous. There would seem to be evidence of what I like to call environmental intervention, various fiddlings and manipulations by the artists. Evidence of the artists’ presence, if that’s what we have here, has always struck me as a means of strengthening this kind of fairly reductionist and abstracted work. Apart from being part of the fun, it distances the work from those dubious ‘pure’ or purist positions unwisely adopted by some artists in the field. The various spaces, outdoors and indoors, are freely juxtaposed. I found my listening wavering between an appreciation of the different spaces and an awakening to the clarity of the various blips, scrapes, periodic machine sounds (in the sense of a regular pulse) and metallic clicks which brought to mind the workings of a small tight chamber orchestra.
Seki (Dundas) is perhaps darker than the previous piece, though it manifests a similar treatment of material, a temporal unfolding rather than a spectromorphological unveiling. The sounds are well chosen, avoiding the more obvious processing, with flurries of activity and a clear sense of agency. The occasional break in the flow, percussive hits and an opening out into outdoor ambience, lend a sense of drama or even narrative though I suspect this isn’t intended. I was slightly surprised at appearance of one of those good old climactic acousmatic wallops with the obligatory extended debris – the stylistic incongruity broke the spell. Finally, outside of the sounds well sculpted I was drawn in by the tease of a fine balance between abstraction and a possible narrative.
Odake (vale) opens in a much more industrial or machinelike fashion, the opening giving way to very subtle panned fluttery gestures. The piece then builds tension most effectively with a distinctive, almost tuned, midrange layer underpinning the gestural and ‘intervention’ layers. This tuned midrange is a feature that you’ll find in the work of other Unfathomless artists. Interesting as it is, I was actually quite impressed by what the artists had going on prior to the appearance of this shared stylistic feature.
The last piece, Ku (above Tennison’s hill) offers a fine expansive outdoor ambience peppered with interventions. We the have another hint of a tonal midrange, a quite enjoyable randomness, or apparent randomness alongside the impression of effortlessness. However, as this piece unfolded I felt that it began to speak less of location than of compositional techniques and procedures. Then another good crescendo, another acousmatic wallop plus the debris of much furniture shuffling in the basement, finishing with a final long statement containing filtered gestures, watery sounds, white noise, electronic hiss, high sine waves, a prominent midrange layer, everything but the kitchen sink and the possibility that someone is getting too close to their material.
These small criticisms aside, this album succeeds very well in exploring a favourite notion of mine (for what it’s worth) – that of the listening environment, an investigation of specific relationships and fields of possibility. First, at the beginning of the work’s processes, we have the environment that the artists choose to work with, in which relationships between the active listener in the field and his or her environment are explored. As the work proceeds other relationships are opened up: between composer and listener, between the listener’s expectations and the work, to name but two. Without a consideration of the wider ramifications of work such as this, we’d be left merely with some nice sounds thrown together more or less skilfully, and there’s already an overabundance of that around the place.
Caity Kerr
The Field Reporter
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When reading about ambient music in more public and mainstream communities, one of the most likely descriptive reasons for listening is for relaxation, or in a more deep and pure sense of the music, to be transported to a different place. What is ambient music is to you? To me, ambient music is all about memory and feeling. Yes, it does transport me to a different place, but not in the cosmic sense of the word as its usually described. Every person listens to music for their own reasons, and each person has their own reactions and relations to it. What about field recordings? While many people consider music heavily-based (or completely-based) on field recordings to be ambient music, in many ways I disagree. Possibly, and almost surely this kind of music can be considered ambient music, but for me, what it does that is completely unique, and also I must add completely different from other instrumental-style ambient music, is that it is completely capable of transporting the listener to another place, in particular, specific places. What is most fascinating about this concept and this type of music, is that in the most complex and mastered works by great artists, along with having a location to relate to (that also commonly comprises the source of the recordings), this actually makes the listener ‘feel’ that they are in this place, or at the least, that they can hear someone’s recording of time spent in this place.
Quality of field recordings and the albums they exist on vary, as well. Some of the best field recording albums were recorded on the cheapest, most bare-bones equipment available (Aki Onda), and some of the best were recorded with high-end equipment, that capture each detail in absolute clarity (Chris Watson). In the case of ‘Injya’ by James McDougall & Hiroki Sasajima, the equipment isn’t defined, and there’s instead a midpoint of quality that rests on both sides, and shouldn’t be necessary to even be defined. It was recorded in Japan and Australia, and that description is enough. What exists inside ‘Injya’ is instead a complete and evasive world, full of movement, darkness, and variation of ominous diaries by two artists whose documentation of a place is no less than visionary. What is more, and I think entirely a benefit of artistry and creativity, is that these are not simply 100% processed field recordings, and not 100% pure field recordings, but a mixture of both. Finding that appropriate medium in the middle allows for the capture of the reality and truth of the places, while allowing the artist to contribute in addition, their own interpretations and changes to that environment. Getting to this place is difficult, but for McDougall & Sasajima, it is perfectly executed.
Throughout ‘Injya’, sounds of the real world compete with clarity and the inharmonious, which is not unlike anything that we hear everyday. There is disorder, noise, and it’s only when there is a rhythm inside the chaos that we commonly notice that things match. Throughout four tracks, McDougall and Sasajima run through a purposed uniformity of documentation, while completely still altering the view of this place, and bringing with it the imagination to move past it, and remember it this way. The opener, “Akigawa dou (spur and valley)’, runs in absolute slow motion on a bed of quiet deepness, with crushing sounds swinging on both sides of a tremendous valley. There is little quiet, and yet everything is moving, muted, and still, hanging in the wind. The second track, ‘Seki (Dundas)’, begins with a more machine-like gravel, which gradually compounds to all but an entire explosion, instead it nearly stops halfway through, with touchless movements, as if suddenly you find yourself inside an abandoned, wrecked ship. There’s nothing but the sound of your hollow footsteps, the outside waves, and a surrounding lack of anything. It’s nearing utter isolation, until you open a door, and instead find a brilliant and swelling world, among the whirs of freeway traffic, flickering seaside lights in the distance, and the calm breeze of twilight.
“Odake (vale)’ hums and sways, details forcibly pulled from such little places, and instead they act as creating an almost insect-like environment of scurrying, flickering bits, while seething streams pour directly through, as if a tape of a forest stream started playing. It’s completely static, crackling, and utterly beautiful. It climbs, and when it falls again, it sounds more like a distant forest fire, or the wind swaying in the trees, while you stay hidden below the canopy. There’s little to do but wait, and watch. The closer, “Ku (above Tennison’s Hill)’, is conveniently the longest track of the album. It is also perhaps the most evolved, and complicated. You’re inside a tent during a rainstorm, just watching through the flap. In the feeling of isolation in this place, there’s a beauty in the half-light, and the blue shades of the sky falling down on the tent. You can see raindrops pop overhead, and when you look up, the rain seems so cavernous it resembles a waterfall. Suddenly, a waterfall is exactly where you are, as it beats the rocks furiously, and pans away. Even before it leaves, high-frequency pitches of insects buzz as the water climbs yet again, and stops climatically, as you begin to walk through the darkness inside caves, through deep puddles, occasionally passing the white noise from the waterfall. Halfway through, is a time of total peacefulness. There are insects buzzing, but for possibly the first time in the entire album, an almost harmonious tone fills the space. There’s no elevation, there’s no ground. It’s simply levitation, and brightness. Everything is color, and there is warmth in imagination.
In 54 minutes, James McDougall and Hiroki Sasajima succeed in creating an album that is not only both real and imaginary at once, but most importantly, it is absolutely cinematic. It’s impossible to listen, without instantly being in these places. I can feel the moisture on the ground, the wind on the beaches, and the hum of the night choirs. There are colors, but also complete darkness. With no shortcomings, and a documentary-style of creation, ‘Injya’ is a mix of those two best things, reality and imagination.
Released on Unfathomless, in a limited edition of 200 numbered copies.
Absolutely essential.
Will Long
thesingularwe.org blog
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“…Its a release that has some questions: for instance: is there any processing and if so to which extent ? How does this collaboration work anyway? Are recordings from both locations simply played together, or has there been any kind of mixing going on? Its all not easy to say. I think there has been some form of processing, mainly just EQ-ing, bringing out more high or low end frequencies, especially in the third and fourth pieces. Also I think that in all four pieces they have searched for specific characteristics of the provided sounds and set them together, with some extent of mixing. I also kept thinking: why should I bother thinking of what they did or didn’t do: these four pieces are very good, a culmination of field recordings that, once together, make great sense. Not minimal, hardly changing music, but vibrant, always on the move, full of tension, evocative and beautiful. Excellent, if not always the most original, but that is perhaps quite hard.” [edited version]
Frans de Waard
Vital Weekly
Unfathomless 